


Like Father, Like Son

by akimikono



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 13:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11852124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akimikono/pseuds/akimikono
Summary: Kakashi looks just like his father. Everyone says so. But somewhere along the way, isn't he supposed to start looking like himself? A short fic of Kakashi's thoughts on looking like Sakumo.





	Like Father, Like Son

**Author's Note:**

> I've been suffering from massive writer's block for a while so I thought maybe a quick fic could help get some ideas out. This is what I ended up writing! Hope you like it! (I only recently got back into Naruto after a 6 year hiatus. I'm relearning the characters and finding out all sorts of new things! It makes me nostalgic and sentimentally sad.)

As far as Kakashi could remember, the only people to see him without his mask were his father, a handful of teammates, and his ninken. He assumed his mother had seen him at one point before she died. He imagined she _had_ to — sometime between giving birth and dying she must’ve held him in her arms, looked down at his face, saw a future she hoped he would have. A future he didn’t get to have. A future he hoped his students would get — something along the lines of peace and security that everyone was rushing towards for “the next generation”. At one point, _he_ was the next generation.

  
He looked a lot like his father. The eyes, the hair, the broad shoulders and looming height. Did any part of him look like his mother? Maybe the mole on his chin, below his bottom lip. Was that hers? Or his ears? His nose? Even the way his fingers splayed out or the unfortunately short life line on his right palm. Was any of it from her? He could’ve asked his father when he was alive, but it never came up. He hadn’t wondered then. Lots of people at the Academy had only one parent - or no parents. He wasn’t so different from them.

  
Kakashi remembered the only time he’d ever raised a question about his mother, and it wasn’t to Sakumo. It was to Pakkun. When he’d grown accustomed to wearing a mask over his face, he’d almost forgotten what he looked like himself. Everyone at school wanted to know what was behind the cloth. He overheard one parent remark, “He’s just doing that because he looks so much like his dad. If he showed his face, the entire class would be too busy gawking to learn anything.” That night at home, Kakashi studied himself in the bathroom mirror under the harsh light, standing tiptoe on the wooden stool. He pulled the mask down and looked over every inch of his young, pale face. The bathroom light was unforgiving. He had the faint outline of a tan line across his cheek, his lips were red, there was a slight glean of sweat over his chin, and a few strands of hair stuck to the side of his face. Pakkun sat on the tiled floor beside the stool, staring up at the young boy.

  
“I look like my dad,” Kakashi said without a hint of doubt in his voice. Pakkun grunted in response. The young boy continued to stare at the reflection before him. “I look like my dad,” Kakashi said again, this time a little less confident. His eyes trained on the mole below his lip, the curve of his nose, the droop of his shoulders, his Cupid’s bow, the arch of his eyebrows. Without turning to look at the dog, he asked, “Do I look like her?”

  
Pakkun strained to look higher and tilted his head. “Like who?”

  
“My mother,” Kakashi said, the word feeling strange and foreign in his mouth. “Everyone says I look like Papa. Do I … I mean, is there any …?” He wasn’t sure anymore what he was asking.

  
“I don’t know,” Pakkun admitted quietly. “I don’t think I ever met her.”

  
“Oh,” was all he could say. The sound of the front door opening and his father’s heavy footsteps prompted him to pull the mask up immediately. He jumped off the stool, gave a pat to Pakkun’s head, and rushed out of the bathroom to greet Sakumo.

  
The few teammates - and villagers - who’d seen him maskless didn’t say much about it. He’d noted rosy cheeks, wide eyes, and stupid grins on all of them but he ignored it.

  
“I look like my father,” he’d remind himself as he pulled the mask back up after drinking or eating. No one really commented on his face if they saw it - no more side remarks like the ones he’d hear at the Academy. His students had their own theories. That was because they’d never known Sakumo. They didn’t have it in their minds that he looked like somebody other than himself.

  
He wasn’t sure how many nurses or doctors or medical nin had seen his face while he was passed out from exhaustion or blood loss. Not like it mattered. They were focused on his life, not his looks.

  
Kakashi wasn’t even sure why he wore the mask anymore, anyway. All the people who associated him with his father had long since passed. It’d been a long time since he’d heard, “He covers his face because he looks like his dad.” Still, he was sure that’s exactly why he kept the mask on. It used to be such a positive compliment - to look like your handsome, respected father. But seemingly overnight it turned to an ugly remark - the reminder of a disgraced ninja. Truly, he was afraid that one day he’d look in the mirror and he wouldn’t see himself, but Sakumo.

  
Or maybe, he was afraid that he’d _only_ see himself and no longer find his father’s features. Behind the mask, he could simultaneously keep Sakumo alive, and as far away from him as possible. Behind the mask, he was Kakashi Hatake - he was Sakumo Hatake - he was his mother - he was the unnamed members of his clan.

  
Pakkun and the other ninken didn’t say anything about it. They were just as young when Sakumo died. They aged so much faster. In their memory, they could see the hazy form of an elder Hatake - but really, they were only concerned with the weeping boy by his side.

  
The older he got, the more Kakashi realized the comments were neither good nor bad — but simply a statement. There was no more criticism or praise in his mind when he uttered the words to himself in front of the mirror in his apartment. “I look like my father.” It was just an observation now - and no one living could deny or affirm it. No one knew of Sakumo now.

  
Older still, and Kakashi realized one day that the age lines and wrinkles were unrecognizable. His hands gingerly raised to his face and his fingers ran over his cheeks, his lips, his hairline, his mole. His voice cracked as he muttered, “I … don’t look like my father.” He’d never seen his father this age - with crow’s feet and creases and decades of baggage on his shoulders. Quietly, almost hypnotically, Kakashi tugged at the mask around his neck and pulled it over his face. He studied the ever-silver mop of spiked hair, the shape of his ear, his still-broad shoulders, and his own dark, curious eyes. Noting that both were now black - no more Sharingan - he raised up two fingers and covered the scar above his eyebrow. A hesitant smile started to spread across his face just as Pakkun waddled into the room to see what he was doing.

  
“Oh!” the dog grunted as he sat down and peered up at Kakashi. The ninja turned, fingers still covering the scar, mask still on. “Jeez, Kakashi, I hardly recognized you. You look just like your father.”

  
Kakashi turned back to the mirror to study his face again. “I do,” he said, dropping his hand. The scar, he noted, was his own - but the light in his eyes was purely Sakumo’s.


End file.
